Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

TRENTON, N.J. — A contrite New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie apologized yesterday for a scandal that threatens his political future, announcing that he had fired a senior aide and banished his top campaign adviser for their roles in days of traffic jams orchestrated to punish a small-city Democratic mayor.

Christie at once claimed responsibility as the state’s chief executive but also insisted he had no involvement in shutting down a pair of access lanes to the heavily traveled George Washington Bridge over four days in early September. The Republican governor said he was “blindsided” by this week’s release of emails and text messages detailing his office’s role in the plot to create severe gridlock in Fort Lee, N.J.

In a two-hour news conference in his office at the State Capitol in Trenton, Christie said he was “embarrassed and humiliated” by an episode that left him feeling “heartbroken” and “betrayed.” Despite his reputation for “directness and blunt talk,” the governor said, “I am not a bully.”

Christie, a leading contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, also tried to tamp down allegations that he nurtures a culture of intimidation in his administration and his political campaigns.

“This is the exception — it is not the rule — of what’s happened over the last four years in this administration,” Christie said. He added that he was “stunned by the abject stupidity that was shown here.”

Christie repeatedly invoked his ignorance of key events, providing a stark contrast to his carefully cultivated image as a hands-on, can-do chief executive and former prosecutor who helped guide New Jersey in the painful aftermath of superstorm Sandy.

Christie said he delegates “enormous authority” to his staff, despite his reputation as a micromanager. He said he first learned of the damning emails between his staff and associates in a news report Wednesday in The (Bergen, N.J.)Record on his iPad at the governor’s mansion, as he got ready to shower after a morning workout.

The emails suggest that Christie operatives jammed traffic in Fort Lee to retaliate against Mark Sokolich, the small city’s mayor, who did not endorse Christie’s 2013 re-election. But Christie claimed he never knew his team was pursuing Sokolich’s endorsement and that, until he saw the mayor’s picture on television, “I wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a lineup.”

Following the news conference, Christie traveled to Fort Lee to apologize personally to Sokolich and the community for the lane closings that severely delayed commuters, school buses and emergency vehicles.

Although the mayor initially thought a meeting would be disruptive, he later said he accepted Christie’s apology. “I take him for his word,” Sokolich said.

The bridge controversy is certain to continue. The office of U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman announced yesterday that it had opened a preliminary inquiry after a referral from the inspector general at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees the bridge.

In Trenton, former Christie appointee David Wildstein, who is shown in emails helping to orchestrate the gridlock plan, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions in front of the General Assembly’s transportation committee. The panel voted unanimously to refer Wildstein to authorities for a possible contempt charge.

State Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat who is friendly with Christie, said lawmakers will continue their investigations but will not rush the process. “We don’t want to create a political circus,” he said, “but answers have to be had.”

Thousands of additional pages of emails connected to the legislative inquiry could be made public as early as today.

Christie said he had fired deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly. Emails show that Kelly was closely involved in executing the gridlock plan, including a message sent to Wildstein in August declaring, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

Christie described Kelly as “stupid” and “deceitful,” adding, “I’ve terminated her employment because she lied to me.”

Christie also announced yesterday that he had removed Bill Stepien — his closest political adviser and his campaign manager in 2009 and 2013 — from his political organization, at least temporarily. Christie said he directed Stepien to withdraw his name from consideration for state Republican Party chairman and to end his consulting arrangement with the Republican Governors Association, which Christie took over as chairman late last year.

No evidence has surfaced that Stepien was involved in closing the lanes, but emails show he communicated about the incident after the fact with Wildstein, who resigned late last year as the scandal began to escalate.